what exactly is inactive ram? when i go into activity
monitor it says i have approx. 200mb of inactive ram?
what purpose does this serve? Cheers. :-)

Big_T :-)

inactive ram is memory that contains old programs, old
shared libraries etc etc kept there until it will be used
again but not flushed because flushing takes time
and it will be flushed when any new programs need to use
it.

Joshua Coventry
Apple Computer Specialist

Inactive memory
This information is no longer being used and has been
cached to disk, but it will remain in RAM until another
application needs the space. Leaving this information in
RAM is to your advantage if you (or a client of your
computer) come back to it later.

Wired memory
This information can't be cached to disk, so it must stay in
RAM. The amount depends on what applications you are
using.